 House Sparrow (Ben Andrew, rspb-images.com) The RSPB is urging participants in last weekend’s Big Garden Birdwatch to submit their results. Records of 6½ million birds have already been submitted, with Denbighshire and Flintshire neck-a-neck for participants in North Wales. From the numbers so far, House Sparrow is the most abundant species in the region but Blue Tit has put in a strong performance in many areas.
As usual in January, most scarce visitors are long-stayers: Lesser Yellowlegs on the Clwyd estuary, Black Redstart at Kinmel Bay, Snow Buntings and Water Pipit at Gronant. A Bufflehead was refound in Foryd Bay, three Surf Scoters showed from Old Colwyn promenade on Sunday and a Red-necked Grebe in Beddmanarch Bay is presumably one seen earlier in the winter in Holyhead harbour. A ‘tristis’ Siberian Chiffchaff at Amlwch and Yellow-browed Warbler at Morfa Madryn may have similar origins, while a Green-winged Teal at the latter site crossed the Atlantic but could be the same bird at the Llanfairfechan nature reserve last winter. Huge flocks of Pink-footed Geese grazed in fields east of Abergele at the weekend. The latest in a raft of reports from Natural Resources Wales assesses the status of the nation’s special wildlife. Of 61 habitats reviewed, 59 are in unfavourable condition; of these, an astonishing 48 are in the worst situation – formally described as “Unfavourable bad” – including all those that make up the country’s wetlands, woodlands, grasslands and heathland. Pollution and agricultural-related practices were assessed to be the most significant pressures. With just four years to meet its global nature commitments, it is sober reading for whoever sits in Welsh Government from May. A Seabird Conservation Strategy, published last week by Welsh Government, identifies the priorities to help Wales’ marine birds, but lacks dedicated funding to implement them, says RSPB Cymru.
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 Three Velvet Scoters and two Surf Scoters off Llanddulas in 2023, a regular wintering site for small numbers of both species in the last decade (Tony Pope) Benign conditions enabled Wetland Bird Survey volunteers to count waterbirds across the region on Sunday, contributing to the 60th International Waterbird Census, a truly global monitoring scheme. My regular patch, the outer Conwy estuary, held 67 Eider ducks, almost seven times the previous highest in over 30 years of WeBS monitoring there. Calm seas also enabled birders to confirm continued presence of up to three Surf Scoters off Old Colwyn/Llanddulas, with four Velvet Scoters here and another 10 off Kinmel Bay, where a Black Redstart winters on the beach.
A male Smew and a couple of Slavonian Grebes on Llyn Alaw, Black-throated Diver off Penrhyn Bay and Lesser Yellowlegs on the Clwyd estuary were among the pick of the other sightings in North Wales. Elsewhere, a Scaup is on Llyn Tegid, and Long-tailed Duck on the Inland Sea, while the wintering Shorelark remained on the Great Orme and Snow Buntings at Gronant. Just outside the region, a White Stork feeds near Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, north of Welshpool. Number-crunching by the British Trust for Ornithology, from the effort of bird-ringers at 100 Constant Effort Sites around the UK, provides insights into the breeding success of some of our commonest birds. In contrast to the previous year, 2025’s dry and sunny weather meant that the majority of species nested more successfully than the average of the previous five years. Resident species monitored had a productive season, except for the rapidly-declining Willow Tit and Greenfinch, while all the warblers did well, including those that winter south of the Sahara. Goldfinch, Coal Tit and Blue Tit were especially successful. This is positive news, because the number of adults recorded by ringers was lower for most species. Curiously, numbers of adult Marsh Tits, a Red-listed bird, bucked the trend by increasing. How these results compare to the national picture will be evident when last year’s Breeding Bird Survey results are revealed. More details here. This weekend, 23-25 January, is the annual Big Garden Birdwatch, when the RSPB asks us to spend an hour recording the birds that land in our gardens. House Sparrow, Blue Tit and Starling were the commonest species in Wales last year, but average counts were more than 10% lower. Sign up at rspb.org.uk/birdwatch.  Lesser Yellowlegs (Chris Jones) Thousands of people cross the Clwyd estuary daily on the ‘blue bridge’ between Rhyl and Kinmel Bay or the newer, traffic-free Pont y Ddraig. Precious few notice that, while not on the scale of the internationally-important wetlands of the Dee or Traeth Lafan, the mud beneath supports tens of thousands of birds across the year; many others use Rhyl Marine Lake, Brickfield Pond Local Nature Reserve and farmland on each side of the county line. Among the typical visitors since the turn of the year is a Lesser Yellowlegs, more slender than our native Redshank; they breed in the boreal forests of Canada and it should now be around the Gulf of Mexico or in South America. Having flown to the wrong side of the Atlantic, probably carried by a storm system, being here wasn’t really a matter of choice; but aside from the temperature, it affirms the value of wetlands across the globe. A handful of the 30+ Welsh records have overwintered and this is the first in the north to occur in January.
Downstream from the American shorebird, a Black Redstart overwinters in Kinmel Bay dunes; other long-stayers include Shorelark on the Great Orme and Snow Buntings at Gronant, and west of Caernarfon, Foryd’s rare Bufflehead was seen at the weekend but can be elusive. A Green-winged Teal is on a flooded field at Llay, near Wrexham, a drake Smew on Anglesey’s Llyn Alaw and Velvet Scoters were again off Abermenai Point. Snow had receded by the time I undertook the British Trust for Ornithology’s Winter Bird Survey above Conwy at the weekend, but its effects lingered. Valley fields and woodland were busy with foraging birds, including Stonechats usually at a higher elevation, but the heath was near-deserted save for an occasional Wren and Robin. Mistle Thrushes were starting to sing as the days lengthen and Rooks bickered in their nesting trees; we are just seven weeks away from the average earliest date for Sand Martin, usually the first trans-Saharan migrant to arrive in North Wales.  Bufflehead (Kevin Hitch) Northeasterly winds and freezing conditions across northern Europe resulted in the biggest influx of European White-fronted Geese to Britain for many years. A handful made it to North Wales, with sightings at Gresford Flash, the Clwyd estuary and RSPB reserves at Cors Ddyga and Conwy during the Christmas holiday. Flocks of Pink-footed Geese have occurred farther west than usual, with hundreds over Rhyl and smaller numbers over Llysfaen and the Great Orme.
Cold weather brought Fieldfares into gardens across the region and a Bewick’s Swan to the Cefni Valley, the first seen on Anglesey since 2004; although as reported in BirdNotes a satellite-tagged bird made a brief and unseen visit to the island in 2023. Bewick’s Swan is increasingly scarce in Britain because of climate change. The other waterbird surprise came from the west, however. A male Bufflehead from North America was found on a wetland adjacent to Foryd Bay, west of Caernarfon, just before Christmas. It went missing for the week prior to New Year’s Eve, when it was refound in the Bay (a word of warning if you’re thinking of looking this week; the roads around Foryd are very icy). It is tempting to assume that it’s the same individual seen for a few hours at RSPB Point of Ayr last month or that it escaped from a wildfowl collection, but the appearance of a female-type in South Wales, also on New Year’s Eve, adds to the intrigue. One of these may become the first Bufflehead in Wales to be considered wild. Other scarce visitors include a Lesser Yellowlegs on the River Clwyd, Velvet Scoters off Abermenai Point and Surf Scoter off Colwyn Bay. A couple of Snow Buntings were suitably disguised among the snowfall on Aran Benllyn on Monday, while two more at Gronant, a Shorelark on the Great Orme and Black Redstart at Kinmel Bay continue their winter stays. On New Year’s Day, the Welsh Ornithological Society updated the national list of birds, when it adopted a new international standard; Until recently there were four competing global taxonomies, but for the first time since 1974, a single list agrees on the names and taxonomic relationships of all the birds in the World: Avilist recognises 11,131 species and 19,879 subspecies. The new WOS list records 461 species that occurred as ‘wild’ in Wales to the end of 2025 and provides the Welsh-language name for each. Hudsonian Godwit, Black-faced Bunting and Siberian Stonechat have been added, but Green-winged Teal and Hooded Crow are no longer considered full species. Full details on the WOS website. BTO Cymru has made its final call for bookings at its inaugural Wales Raptor Convention at Aberystwyth on 31 January. Topics include plans for the reintroduction of White-tailed Eagle, raptor monitoring in the uplands, a workshop on identification of birds of prey and a talk by the National Wildlife Crime Unit. Tickets are just £10, available from the BTO website until 16 January. |
Bird notesA weekly update of bird sightings and news from North Wales, published in The Daily Post every Thursday. Archives
February 2026
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